


choice theory

by epilogues



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Post-Canon, Relationship Study, the summary kinda says it all but, they love each other!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:41:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24870958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epilogues/pseuds/epilogues
Summary: Dirk and Roxy go to Cook Out.
Relationships: Roxy Lalonde & Dirk Strider
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	choice theory

**Author's Note:**

> ruby if you're reading this thank you very much for the epic kinnie moments and the inspiration!! ily!!
> 
> two quick things: has anyone else realized that cook out is only one letter away from cock out. hmm. also if you don't live in the southern usa, cook out is just a fast food place!

“And we’re not just ordering online because…?” 

“Because we both need to get out of the house, and you know I hate driving,” Roxy says. “C’mon, you can pick where we go.”

Dirk pushes his fingers up under his shades so that he can pinch the bridge of his nose, but he’s never been good at faking exasperation and it shows. “Okay,” he relents. “Just remind me why we’re driving again?”

Roxy grabs his hand and starts pulling him outside into the earlier-morning-than-Dirk-would-strictly-prefer sunlight. “It’s fun, it’s like we’re normal people,” she explains. 

“Right,” Dirk says. Because that’s definitely on the table for them, and he doesn’t even mean that in the angsty way. Just that, you know, they’re _them_. But he’s worse at turning Roxy down than he is at acting exasperated with her, so when she hands him his car keys, he takes them without a word. He’s just shifting the car into drive when Roxy’s hand lands on his elbow. “What?”

“Your seatbelt,” she says, “you didn’t put it on.”

Dirk gives her a look. “I think I”ll be fine without it, Rox.”

She narrows her eyes slightly, and he reaches for it with a sigh. “Happy now?”

Roxy answers by letting go of his arm and reaching for the radio dial, cranking the volume up when Britney Spears’ voice starts filtering out into the car. Dirk definitely doesn’t sing under his breath as he starts off towards Cook Out with a disregard for traffic laws that’s more unintentional than most things he does. It’s fine. He knows what he’s doing better than whatever the government would tell him, and besides, he has a perfect record. Not to mention that Roxy loves seeing how fast they can go once they hit the interstate, how many people she can get to wave back at her as they whip past. 

Dirk watches her out of the corner of his eye as he weaves through lanes like walls of a sunken city. Driving, even when the roads are as crowded as they are now, for whatever reason, is… nice. It reminds him that he’s not alone anymore without making him feel suffocated by moving, breathing _people_ , and hearing Roxy laugh when he accelerates more, just to see if he can, is comforting in a way he doesn’t think he’ll ever know how to get used to. All things considered, they’re pulling into the Cook Out parking lot way sooner than Dirk would prefer. 

“Drive through or walk up?” he asks. “Or go in, I guess, if you want to get your ass stuck in a Sprite spill again.”

Roxy wrinkles her nose and runs a hand through her windswept hair. “Yeah, I’m good out here, let’s walk up,” she decides. 

Dirk nods. Okay. Ordering directly from a person, he’s got that down by now, he’s done it a hundred and one times and it’s fine. He parks the car and is about to get out when Roxy says, “Wait, let’s look at the menu in here, I don’t wanna just hover outside for ten million hours while we pick what we want.”

“Yeah, alright,” Dirk says. He goes to pull it up on his shades, but before he can even start, Roxy pushes her phone into his hand, the menu already open. Dirk scans it performatively - he’s been here three times now, and although the decision was agonizing the first time, he’s fine with sticking with what he knows works. “Okay, I’m good.”

“Dirk. Are you just getting one of those orange milkshakes again?”

Dirk turns to face Roxy, who’s somehow managed to angle herself so that her head is on the center console and her legs are propped up on the dashboard. “Yeah? They’re good, I don’t see the point in risking getting something I don’t like if I know what works.”

Roxy rolls her eyes and snatches her phone back. “The _point_ is trying new things,” she says. “That’s, like - the whole thing. I don’t wanna get you on a philosophy tangent or anything, okay, because I’d like to order at some point today, but trying new things is kinda, you know, what you do when you’re in an actual world with an actual society and actual fast food places.”

“But-”

“Nope, no philosophical rambles,” Roxy interrupts. “At least, not until we have our food. Now hang on, give me a sec to pick what I want.”

Dirk, to his credit, doesn’t argue further. He knows that later, once they’re back at his place and sprawled at on the couch, Roxy will let him explain the arbitrary nature of trying to assign a “point” to existence, and he’ll let her call him depressing in the way she does, and he’ll explain that he’s not trying to be, that he’s just being “logical, Rox, really,” and she’ll steal his shades so that he can’t hide the way he’s laughing, and when she falls asleep, he’ll toss one of the blankets Rose knitted over her and make sure to pull the living room curtains closed before he falls asleep in the chair next to her. It’s a routine, like a line of code, like if {Dirk loves Roxy}, then {this is what he does}, and if {Roxy loves Dirk}, then {this is what she does}. 

So Dirk leans back in his seat and lets Roxy ramble about how there are way too many flavors of milkshake - “Over forty, Dirk, it’s way too many to choose from,” she groans - and how the font makes the word fresh look like freak - “Seriously, who’s gonna order Freak Eggnog? I mean, I’d try it once, but that doesn’t mean I’d trust it” - and how, actually, maybe she won’t get a shake at all and just get chicken nuggets - “Because,” she points out, deadpan, “chimcken nuggies.” 

“Chimcken nuggies,” Dirk agrees, equally solemnly. “Why don’t you just get the orange one?”

“Because I’ve had it before,” Roxy explains. “And besides, I don’t think I’m in the mood for, like, fruity sweet, you know? But I don’t just want chocolate, because that’s boring.”

Dirk leans over and looks at the admittedly imposing list of flavors. “How about double chocolate, then?”

“Okay, one, what’s the difference between chocolate and double chocolate? I feel like they’ve gotta have just, like, two flavors back there and each of them has fifty different names, and two, but that’s so much _commitment_ to chocolate, and what if I do want fruity sweet?”

“You could always get two milkshakes?” Dirk suggests. “I mean, according to Kahneman and Tversky-”

“The answer is to get chocolate cherry,” Roxy says, her finger pointing at the words on her phone screen like that’ll make her more confident in her decision. 

Dirk blinks for a moment, the building monologue dissolving back into his head - but he knows Roxy will listen to it later, and she’ll twist it around to point out that it applies to him just as much as it does to her - before he laughs a little and nods. “I - yeah, sure, that’s what they said. Chocolate cherry’s the root of all choice theory.”

Roxy grins. “Is that choice theory as in decisions or just, like, really good ideas?”

“Definitely both,” Dirk says. “You ready to order?”

Roxy looks down at the menu one more time, then nods decisively. “Chocolate cherry and chicken nuggets,” she announces, swinging her legs down from the dashboard and somehow managing to get out of the car gracefully. “And an orange shake for the great Mr. Strider.”

“Do you think we’re at the point of being regulars yet?” Dirk asks, following her out of the car and up to the window. The early summer sun is already hot and uncomfortable, but its familiarity isn’t entirely unwelcome. “Like, can I just go up and ask for my usual, or is there a certain number of times you have to reach before you do that? Actually, is that a thing people do at all or just a movie thing?”

“Huh, I don’t know, actually,” Roxy says. “But we’ve been here three times, so I don’t think you’re there yet.”

“Tragic,” Dirk says dryly, then, “Well, I guess we’ll have to keep coming back.” 

Roxy bumps his shoulder with her own as they fall into the small line of people waiting, and he knows that she knows what he means. “Hey, I’ve gotta get through the menu somehow.”

“Even if it means trying Freak Eggnog?”

Roxy laughs, louder than the joke warrants, in Dirk’s opinion, and loudly enough that the older man standing in front of them turns around with a raised eyebrow, and he can’t help but laugh at how quickly her face goes pink. “Even if it means trying Freak Eggnog,” she says, significantly quieter.

Once they’ve gotten their food - Roxy briefly panicked when they were next in line and almost changed her order to chocolate chip cherry before deciding that she didn’t want anything textured in her shake -, Dirk and Roxy retreat to the shade of the car, where Roxy listens as Dirk explains Kahneman and Tversky’s ideas and Dirk reluctantly tries Roxy’s shake and admits that he might consider getting it next time, even if that “defeats the entire point of trying to become a regular, though.” They talk until Dirk swears that some of the drive-thru employees are giving them weird looks for having been parked for nearly three hours and that they should probably leave, and then they take the long route back to Dirk’s house, the one with all of the trees and dappled sunlight and two lane roads that still feel novel on days like this, where Roxy plays some of the new music she’s found recently and Dirk passes her a stack of book recommendations that he’s been setting aside for her. 

They fake-argue about existence and its meaning, just like Dirk knew they would, and Roxy falls asleep draped over the arm of the couch, just like Dirk knew she would, and when she wakes up in the morning, she finds that Dirk has covered her with one of Rose’s blankets before passing out in his chair, just like she knew he would. And when the sun gets too insistent, even from behind the curtains, Dirk gets up and they do it all again.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! :3


End file.
